Heather and Barry's Homepage

It seems like every time we’re in a city, we make a big shopping run. After vacating the hotel (and getting a free granola bar to eat and a brochure for the scrap book), we went to (a) a drug store (for more tissues [my poor nose!], DayQuil, and some other sicky-related items), (b) the local camera store for a lens cap that will fit my zoom lens when it has the step-up ring attached {Note to self: Y’ know, it would be really nice to STOP spending money on my camera by having someone tell me everything that I’ll need given the purchases I am making.}, and (c) a hair salon for Barry, who needed short hair before we went any further on our trip.

We also made a stop for lunch at the Space Aliens Café, apparently a chain on this side west of the Mississippi and North of the Mason-Dixon Line. I ordered a small pizza, one of the only things that I could eat on the menu, and Barry ordered a taco quesadilla. The place was far out, with little alien dolls hanging from the ceiling and the walls, with a built-in night sky with planets and stars, and with other appropriate items around the space ship that made the place the perfect place to be zapped away and taken to another galaxy. * insert Twilight Zone music here *

We escaped Bismarck around noonish and made our way toward the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. As with yesterday, I left Barry alone in the car to be swept away by interplanetary species as I fell into the depths of dreamland.

A few hours later, we arrived at the Painted Canyon visitor’s center, which is a few miles east of the South Unit of the Park. We looked around a bit, talked to the people at the visitor’s center, signed the registry, then made our way to the trailhead of a short hike for our first official adventure in the Northwest Plains. As Shannon (a relative of my aunt and uncle who suggested we stop here) said, the colors were intriguing. My stuffy nose made it somewhat difficult to breathe, but I was able to manage - slowly. It was probably the pokiest mile-hike that I’ve ever made in my life. Barry, never being to the badlands before, was impressed with the multicolored clay rock that surrounded us, and the variation in landscape was lovely. Toward the end of our hike, it started to sprinkle ever so slightly.

We quickly finished the loop, went to the restrooms before getting in the car again, then drove onward to Medora and the actual National Park. Barry, acting on my recommendation, purchased the Golden Eagle National Parks Pass, which for $65, allows us into any National Park or other park-like Fee Area until next September for “free”. We drove to the Cottonwood Campground inside the park (not included in the pass), and on the way say the cutest little fuzzy creatures running around this landscape covered with burrows. We kept driving along, taking in the park as we went. We arrived about 7 miles or so after entering the park. Because I was so exhausted, Barry was a total trooper; he recommended that we set up camp and that I take a nap while he went into the town of Medora to get dinner. He helped me to set up the tent and then left me to decide if I wanted to go through the effort of pumping up the air mattress or not. I did so at the rate of a snail then threw on the sheet to lie down. Drizzle fell all around me as I tried to sleep. Barry returned in what seemed like no time with food. He tempted me up by telling me that I had to come and take some pictures of the view. Right he was; the views were incredible. I took a lot of shots, and before I knew it, Barry had finished making dinner and it was time to eat.

The evening was very low key. Wild horses neighed on the other side of the river as we munched on Rice-a-Roni, green beans, and Cream of Mushroom soup. Barry is all about making one-pot meals, as they are faster to make and take less clean-up time. He told me he wasn’t worried about catching whatever I have, as he thinks that it is the bug that he had a month or so ago, and he probably gave it to me, so eating out of the same pot helped with this plan, which has worked very well and produced some excellent meals.

When the pots were clean we took a drive to Dog Town - Prairie Dog Town, that is. Along the way, we stopped at a skyline vista. The sun was setting and I took some pictures of the sky, as always, trying to capture the perfect moment. By the time we got to dog town, they had all retired for the night [to watch an episode of CSI –Barry] {No, no, no. Prairie Dog Scene Investigation. —Heather}. On the way home, we saw other wildlife. We headed back to camp and the moon was casting its shadow on the river. Stars were beginning to sparkle in the twilight and Barry suggested setting up the tripod to take some long-second exposures. I was feeling pretty tired and wanted to turn in, so we climbed into the tent and fell asleep.

Sometime in the middle of the night, we both woke up cold and needing to go to the bathroom. We were as zippy as possible, unbelievably both leaving the building at the same time. On the way back to the tent, Barry stopped at the car to get some warmer clothing. Before we got into the tent again, we looked up into the vast span of darkness that shimmered with a beauty unlike that which can be captured anywhere in Boston. (Northampton, on the other hand….) I was shivering, but I was also wide-awake, and I asked Barry if we should go and get the camera and tripod. This time, he declined given his frigid state, but we both took a few precious moments to appreciate the amazing grace that nature and science were providing us, then zoomed into our house to try and stay warm until morning.